I Always Knew You Were Tomorrow

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Titirangi is, unless you live there, pretty shit to get to. And if you do live there you’re probably too busy fantasising about leaving to have any time for art.

Which is a shame because at the moment there’s a very cool exhibition on at Lopdell House right in the heart of Titirangi. Boe Busch is a painter and printmaker who recently graduated and lives and paints out in West Auckland. I always knew you were tomorrow is a collection of work she's created this year.

Lopdell house is, at least in my mind, usually associated with more (insert politer word for conservative, middle-aged, middle-of-the-road) work – pottery and prints and things which are nice. And this may not be too far off, as Boe’s exhibition isn’t in the Lopdell Gallery proper but in the ‘Upstairs Gallery’ which I hadn’t previously known existed. The night of her opening there was some sort of function on in the main room downstairs which had a ‘Private’ sign and was full of that type of generic middle-aged woman with the short hair and sensible black coat who attend things like that.

But we ignored them and went upstairs and actually it’s quite cool up there. Or is at the moment because the exhibition is cool. Boe Busch has done a bunch of paintings and illustrations in acrylic and charcoal and chalk pastel, a mix of text and textures and figurative elements. Her paintings are very layered and some of the images seem like they’ve been accumulated rather than planned. They’re kind of like the shop walls that get postered and postered again, layers of paper and photocopy all merging and competing, bits of older images peeking through from underneath the top picture. This fits with the subject matter too, as most of these pictures have a narrative in them, and hint at bigger stories that we’re only seeing a glimpse of.

I don’t know if it’s a standard thing at Lopdell House but every Sunday of the exhibition Boe will be there in the afternoon, so you can get a chance to talk to her about her work and the ideas behind it and I don’t know, haggle? Is that appropriate? Maybe not. But still, just buy the pictures anyway, they’re more than awesome enough.

I always knew you were tomorrow
New paintings and drawings by Boe Busch
27 August – 20 September